A TriStar team was challenged when a large Gulf Coast refinery had a tank that had not been cleaned in more than 10 years and inventoried 17 feet of oily sludge that was approximately 80 percent spent catalyst.

The issue was that the tank could not be cleaned conventionally utilizing door sheets to manually remove the product because the tank had to be ready to be put back into service within a moment’s notice.

TriStar developed a system that allowed the vessel to be desludged without personnel entry, while still maintaining the structural integrity of the vessel. TriStar Operations Manager Daryl Archuleta directed the efforts of project managers Davy Crockett and James Spradley on the 24/7 project.

“This was the first time that a project of this scale had been successfully completed in the United States,” Archuleta said. “Not cutting any door sheets made the extraction process a little more unique, but the system we developed allowed us to remove and process more than 5,000 tons of material from this on schedule without taking the tank out of service.”